


various dn drabbles

by lanyons



Category: Death Note
Genre: Mentions of Suicide, half of these are unfinished, idk why i'm randomly publishing these but heyyyy, mostly just beyond's roadtrip across the universe, some gore, warning for self-harm in the first chap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2018-04-14 04:47:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4551045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanyons/pseuds/lanyons





	1. blood slivers (beyond birthday)

It is early October. B crouches on the windowsill of a grotty hotel room in Rome, making incisions on the tips of his fingers with a penknife. Night is falling; the air is cold. A blue, sickle-shaped moon hangs between the rooftops.

B’s fingers jerk the knife forward, and two drops of blood crawl up through flesh and splash onto the pavement below, where the lifespans of passerby pulse like sunspots.


	2. afterlife (beyond birthday)

There is no time in the afterlife. The sun neither rises nor sets, caught in an eternal five o’clock angle amid the dull copper of the sky. Underneath its glare, for what is days or hours or perhaps minutes, B wades through a shallow sea the green of uncut diamond; stiffened sharp with salt that leaves his calves stinging and raw.


	3. of old ghosts in houses (beyond birthday)

B breaks into a house in Salem, Massachusetts.

It’s an old house, long since claimed by ivy, held together by loosely piled stones and slanted, creaking beams. Moths flutter silently through the stagnant air; trails of dust, like tiny rushing stars, follow in their wake.

A crooked little house, for a crooked little man.

There are ghosts in the house. They whisper to him of centuries gone by, of witch trials and revenge, of the hangman’s noose.

“My mother was a witch,” B says, matter-of-factly. An old woman with blood streaming from one side of her head laughs and disappears.


	4. light through church windows (a and beyond birthday)

In the chapel at Wammy’s, B reads Latin in a high, clear voice from the pulpit, and A sits in the pews scuffing circles in the dust that carpets the floor.

It is mid July. The heat of summer clings to their pores, insidious, like cigarette smoke. The sun creeps up behind the stained-glass windows, flooding the room with colour; the effect is almost ethereal. From far above, high in the rafters, a pair of ravens begin to caw.

In seven hours, A will be dead.


	5. sunflowers (a and beyond birthday)

From a pot on A’s windowsill sunflowers grow, tall and spindly and sickly-looking. In their struggle for light, they have long since abandoned growing straight, and tangle over and around each other like rope thread in a noose. Their petals are wilted; but have maintained, surprisingly, a bright yellow colour.

“You’re trying to grow a jungle in your room,” B comments, a little unnecessarily.

“Gardening isn’t my strength”, A admits wearily. His limbs are heavy; the hairs on his skin trap humidity, the smell of soil. He shoots a hesitant glance at B. “I thought they would make me happy.”

“Did they?” B asks, although he already knows the answer. Then, when A doesn’t respond: “I once heard Van Gogh swallowed yellow paint so he would be happy. I suppose it didn’t work for him, either.” 

“No,” A agrees. The word sticks to his throat.

Neither of them say any more. They lie on the bed; around them, a church-like silence stretches. B angles his head and watches the yellow of the sunflowers frame A like a halo. Sunlight streams from behind. For a split second, A is illuminated like a saint; a martyr. Then the sun passes and the moment is gone.


	6. in the hyacinth house (l/light)

February afternoon; an old English house crumbled by hyacinths.

“I love you,” Light says. L nods, once, and leans forward to gently press chapped lips to his forehead.

The silence around them swirls, like dust, and settles.


	7. apocalypse (l/light)

It is the end of the world. In a house by the sea, Light and L sit still and heavy, like old clocks running low on battery. A television flashes static from the corner of the room, sending flickering light over both their faces.

The window is open. A listless wind blows coppery, hot air into their nostrils. The sea churns like a witch’s oils; a boat topples over and begins to sink, one white sail pointing upwards. Above them, the swollen stars are becoming supernovas. The sky brightens and fades momentarily with their every explosion.

L’s kisses are slow and deep, and he tastes like sugar and multivitamin. The stars have made his skin into a canvas of colours: yellows and oranges; blue shadows jutting from under where Light’s hands are wrapped around his wrists.

L presses his fingers into the knobs of vertebrae under Light’s skull, and they wait.

Outside, one by one, the stars go out.


	8. oranges (l/light)

The summer brings a breezeless, listless heat. Light sits at the table peeling oranges that cloy his nostrils like incense; trickle bitter rivulets of juice across his hands. Crouched in a chair opposite him, L stacks the discarded peels into towers and refreshes news websites on his laptop. 

Across the room, mould seeps out of a crack in the wall. A fly on the windowsill writhes and buzzes its last.

“This is pointless,” Light says. He reaches over and closes the laptop. L makes no objection; he rather agrees. The curves of Light’s fingers are sticky with juice. When he reaches for L, they stain his shirt the toxin yellow of smoker’s nails.

L’s bones remind Light of a malformed city, towering and white. He tastes the way that heated plastic smells, and of cheap ice cream, and of the sour citric of the oranges, the scent of which now clamours in Light’s every pore.


	9. suns (l/light)

“I think I’ll be a good ghost,” Light remarks to L, as they sit in the attic of the Wammy house and watch the sun, glowing the soft orange of a jack o’lantern, sink into the west.

“Why is that, Light-kun?” L asks. He is using one finger to draw in the dust coating the floor; several flakes lift up through the air, where they swirl like a miniature snowstorm, before dropping once more to the ground. 

“Because,” Light states matter-of-factly, face stretching in a smile, “I will never stop haunting you.”

L raises an eyebrow and scoffs half-heartedly. “I shall very much look forward to that,” he says, and links their big toes together.


	10. jam and discussions of death (naomi misora and beyond birthday)

She asks B once, over breakfast, what it had been like to die.

“It was uneventful,” B replies. He is using his penknife to scrape strawberry jam over a slice of toast; apparently undaunted by his own death being the topic of conversation. “My heart beat one minute, and then it stopped beating. In some ways,” he adds, “The way in which Kira kills is very simplistic.”

“I can’t picture it,” Naomi confesses to him. “Death, I mean.” When she closes her eyes and tries, she is confronted by only the darkness of her own eyelids.

B tips his head to one side and taps the side of his nose with his knife. Jam sticks to the corner of his mouth like blood. “You’ll experience it yourself, soon enough,” he replies sagely. “And then you won’t have to.”

“So you keep telling me,” she acquiesces with a nod. She picks up her mug of coffee and sips at it, blowing away the steam spilling from the dark liquid.

“It won’t be long,” B warns ominously, as he opens a packet of cereal shaped like the alphabet and begins to fastidiously pick out the Ls.


	11. one day it's clear and then you burn (a and beyond birthday)

B lights matches, watches the flames glow bright and yellow and alive, and feels a brief flare of power surge through his body. It stings his bones and pools in his stomach like white-hot electricity. He tries to hold onto it as the matches burn down, even as he drops them and crushes them underfoot.

When B accidentally burns his fingers on the last match, A takes his hand and carefully kisses each of his knuckles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow, i can't believe i'm finally, finally updating my set of drabbles! if anyone's interested, thank u for reading xx
> 
> i'm sorry it's so short. i'm gonna try and write some longer stuff tho - i think i'm gradually getting back into writing
> 
> tumblr: tiberivskirks  
> twitter: goldrapmon


	12. someone's going to do something someone else will regret (a/beyond birthday)

Lying on a stained mattress with B’s elbow jabbing uncomfortably into his stomach, A figures that this is about as good as it’s ever going to get.

It is early May, and the air is warm and slow and heavy. The sun slices through the gaps in the blinds and lies in bright lines across the floor, illuminating the dust suspended above the bed. Bluebottles zigzag in and out of the light like rushing stars.

A’s limbs carry the same perpetual heaviness as always, but the smell of cooling sweat and B’s hair tickling his nostrils make him feel strangely proud to be alive. They are twisted up in each other - head to neck, hands to waist, feet to soles. B says he is only half a person, but to A, he has always seemed whole.

“I wish that I could save you,” A finds himself saying. “I wish that you could save me.”

B traces a finger down A’s spine. “We both know that isn’t possible, darling.”


End file.
